Facebook is a powerful marketing tool with many features to help you succeed. While most marketing is done in the form of a simple post or image, Facebook events, pages, and lists can help you to market and connect more effectively. Learn how to use Facebook groups for Network Building and building your business.

Facebook Events

Facebook events are an easy way to connect with and grow your network, while demonstrating the strength of relationships. Facebook Events don’t have to be for an in-person event, they can be for a Skype session, a conference call, or even just a brainstorm session on Facebook. To create an event, find “Create Event” listed under Events on the left hand side navigation in Facebook. As you build your event, you can add the important details like date, time and location, but there is one other feature to pay special attention to: Privacy.

At first glance, this seems like a simple tool to decide who to invite, but the privacy settings are key to your marketing. The options for privacy are public, open invite, guests and friends, or invite only. Choose your privacy option based on how you want to market your event.

If you want as many people as possible to join your event, choose Public. Just know with this option that people you do not know now have information about your event and may attend. If you’d like to spread the word about your event though people you’ve already invited, choose Open Invite. This option allows all friends of a guest to see the event information and any guest with an invite from you to then invite an unlimited number of their friends to attend. If you’d like to keep your event even smaller, but leave the option open for more guests, choose Friends and Guests. This means that only those invited to the party will see the event information, but those invitees do have the option to invite their friends. Lastly, Invite Only is a good option for a conference call with your downline or any event that you would prefer is a small private group. Only those who are invited will see event information and those invitees do not have the option to invite anyone else.

Facebook Lists

Lots of people have more friends than they can keep track of on Facebook. And because of Facebook’s algorithm, this means you may be missing important posts from people in your network. To ensure you see posts from team members, your upline, and potential prospects, take advantage of Facebook lists. These lists give preference to what shows up in your Facebook feed, but also let you see all the members of a list with one click of the mouse. To create a list, navigate to Friends and select More in the left hand navigation on Facebook. You may notice Facebook has already created a few lists for you based on commonalities of people on your friends list. To create your own curated list, choose Create List, name your, list and then begin typing the names of people you would like to include in this list. To access the list when you’re done, simply go to the same Friends area and your list should appear.

Facebook Groups

Though not as popular as they once were, Facebook Groups are a powerful tool. Much like Lists, Groups allow you to connect with people who matter most to you. Consider creating a Facebook group for your team, business, or people interested in your business. To launch your own group, navigate to Groups on the left hand side navigation and choose, Create Groups. You will now have the option to set your group as Open, Closed, or Secret. Open groups mean anyone can join, closed groups mean you can send invites and people can request to join them, and secret groups means no one can join unless the person who created the group invites them. Consider creating a private group for your downline or a public group for people interested in your business. Groups allow for better visibility because, like lists, when you add a group, it will appear in the left hand navigation with its own icon.

Building and maintaining your downline in affiliate marketing is all about balance. You must balance the work you put in to acquire new downline members and working with your existing downline members. Too much time spent on just one of these can results in an unhappy, uneducated downline and you struggling to create a system that creates residual affiliate income. Read on for ideas on how to balance your existing members, work towards longevity while avoiding turnover and achieve affiliate marketing success.

Relationships

Relationships are the key to affiliate marketing success. Take the time to build a relationship with new affiliates in your downline. As these affiliates become more experienced, maintain this relationship even though they might not need as much guidance. Strong relationships will help downline members feel good about working with you and more likely to continue on in your downline.

Support

When you have a question or an issue with a product you’ve purchased and you can easily reach out to the company who made it, how does that make you feel? How does it make you feel when you can’t reach that company? No matter if you’re selling widgets or an affiliate marketer, the ability to get support from those higher up is important. Provide support to your downline members when they need it. It will build trust and a stronger relationship.

Learning

Being a GDI affiliate is easy and manageable, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a learning curve. An educated affiliate is more likely to continue on your downline than one who doesn’t understand all of GDI’s benefits and services. That’s why GDI offers a Learning Bonus. New affiliates can qualify for this bonus, but experienced affiliates can benefit too. Study each item in the Learning Bonus checklist and make sure your downline knows them too.

Duplication

Another way experienced affiliates can benefit from the Learning Bonus is its related offering, the Duplication Bonus. Experienced affiliates work towards their Duplication Bonus as each new member of their downline earns their Learning Bonus. Ideally, your downline has members in their downline too, make sure they know about this bonus to build and extended and educated downline.

Team

Look at your downline not as people who are serving you, but as your team members. You achieve affiliate marketing success when your downline achieves success, so it’s in your best interest to ensure they are educated and happy. How do you do this? Become a great team leader. Offer support, advice and kudos when your team does well. A downline member who feels respected and supported is much more likely to stay in affiliate marketing.

Building a network is crucial to growing your business, but building it with the right people is essential. While your first thought for building a network may be to cast a big net, this isn’t the best idea. Focus on what type of people you want in your network and to build your team with. Sure, your old neighbor might be an easy contact, but what do they have to offer you and your network?

If you’re building a network to grow your business, consider what type of skills and work ethic you’re looking for. For example, someone who is social media savvy or has experience running their own business is a good choice for an affiliate marketing network. As such, work on adding people to you network with those skills.

Identify How Can You Add Value

“Give to get—but really, give to give. It can pay off handsomely in the long run, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. Share an idea, lend a hand, or make an introduction that could be beneficial to another person. And watch what starts to happen.”

The first quote stresses on what qualities you want others to have and what they can give you. This point is the necessary companion to that. Identifying the people you want in your network is important, but how do you get them on board? You need to identify what you can offer others to incentivize them to connect with you and remember you. As stated above, what you offer can be as simple as an introduction or more involved like sharing a great idea. Think of what you can offer someone before you reach out to build that connection and you will have a conversation starter and a reason to stay top of mind.